Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? Climate specialists say Denver is the almost certainly main U.S. metropolis to get a snowy vacation, however the odds stay low.
Outdoors of oddball Christmas storms, probabilities of a white Christmas within the U.S. have gotten much less and fewer seemingly with a development of rising temperatures and hotter ocean waters, in keeping with a December report launched by AccuWeather meteorologists.
Denver has, on common annually, a 34% likelihood of seeing a basic white Christmas, in keeping with AccuWeather information compiled over the previous three a long time.
The Colorado metropolis ties with Chicago and beats out Indianapolis, Boston and New York by roughly 10% or extra, AccuWeather meteorologists mentioned within the report. These 4 locations make up the remainder of the highest 5 main cities with a historic probability of seeing a white Christmas.
The Nationwide Climate Service provides Colorado a barely extra optimistic estimate.
“If having a white Christmas means having one inch or extra of snow on the bottom, we have now a 36% likelihood,” mentioned Maggie Ideker, a meteorologist with NWS’s Boulder workplace. “However, if a white Christmas means having measurable snowfall on Christmas Day, then the percentages drop to about 14%.”
Within the final 30 years, Denver has had solely seven Christmas Days with measurable snowfall, about 23%, Ideker mentioned. Nevertheless, the town has seen Christmas mornings with snow already on the bottom 13 occasions in that very same interval, about 43%.
AccuWeather defines a white Christmas as any Dec. 25 with 1 inch or extra of snow on the bottom, whether or not it was already there or it fell on Christmas Day.
It’s too quickly to inform if Denver will get fortunate with snow this yr, Ideker mentioned, including that forecasters can have a greater concept roughly every week forward of the vacation.
Solely a handful of the highest 25 cities within the U.S. have greater than a 1% probability of a white Christmas, in keeping with AccuWeather meteorologists, which places Denver far forward of the gang.
Denver final noticed a white Christmas in 2022, when a number of days of winter climate and damaging temperatures within the days earlier than the vacation led to 2 inches of snow on the bottom Christmas morning, in keeping with NWS data.
AccuWeather meteorologists mentioned 2022 was probably the most widespread white Christmas throughout the U.S. within the final 30 years, with greater than half of the nation being coated in snow.
The final white Christmases in Denver earlier than 2022 got here in a pair when heavy snow hit the town on Christmas Day in each 2014 and 2015, NWS data present.
Having two white Christmases in a row is “extraordinarily uncommon,” in keeping with NWS forecasters. It was additionally the primary time on file that Denver bought a number of inches of snow on Christmas itself, as a substitute of the times main as much as the vacation, two years in a row.
Denver’s heaviest snowfall on Christmas Day was 7.8 inches in 2007, in keeping with NWS data. The best snow depth ever recorded on the bottom in Denver on Christmas morning was 24 inches, measured after the Christmas Eve blizzard of 1982.
Outdoors of main cities, AccuWeather meteorologists mentioned cities within the mountains throughout the western U.S. and Rocky Mountains have significantly better odds of a white Christmas.
Ski cities in Colorado — together with Winter Park, Aspen, Steamboat Springs, Breckenridge and Telluride — vary from a 94% to 99% historic likelihood of a white Christmas, in keeping with AccuWeather information.
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